Matthew shocked and offended his original audience. He was calling them out of their romanticized version of faith which had so blinded them that they missed the very thing they had been looking for every time they opened the scriptures.

From what I see in church culture today, I think we need to be offended again.

We are chasing the wrong things.

Shepherds don’t fit in well at church. Shepherds get the carpet dirty, they smell bad, they don’t know the lingo, their manners are questionable, and they just make us uncomfortable. When they get excited, they shout “Hell YEAH!” and not “hallelujah”.

All of these stories of messed up people trying to follow God, royally screwing up, and getting lots of do overs and re-directions.

They don’t get their significance because they were great men, we should all look up to and emulate. They are significant because they got to be part of God’s story.

A lot of these guys were pretty much horrible people at some point in their story still God directed them.

That’s freaking amazing. Because the God who created this entire universe cares about really messed up people and works to bring beauty and purpose to their stories.

Jesus taught that holy days were not the end all. They are simply meant to be a tool to help us connect with God. And he certainly didn’t say, “Hey guys make sure you stress yourself out decorating everything and ignore half the stuff I taught so people know that you really love me on my birthday.”

I honestly don’t know a single person on either side who is not saddened by school shootings, disgusted by sexual abuse, and perplexed about how to best deal with immigration reform. In my adult life, I have not witnessed a single productive conversation by politicians about any of these issues and I’m frankly disgusted and tired of it.

I promise when you read the Bible like an English teacher, you aren’t going to come up with same old boring, neat and tidy, always positive, always encouraging, often fake and romanticized chicken soup and KLove stories. You will see a much messier, often harder version of Christianity that packs more punch and is way more comforting when life gets real, like some Rum and Cola for your Soul

Even today, religious people are still tempted to divide into accepted and unaccepted based on conformity to the rules. Jesus accepted people based on the humility of their heart and their desire to follow him.

Are you trying to "be a Christian" but struggling with always feeling guilty? You may be a victim of religious shaming. Jesus came to free us from constantly feeling guilty about our past. He ACCEPTS us and frees us to follow him.